GENERAL INTRODUCTION 



erudition, fortune and talents, and, like Queen Anne, the 

 only title Miss Wilmott cares to claim is that of gardener. 

 Than the collections of hardy plants at Warley and at 

 Tresserve, on the shore of Lake Bourget, nothing more 

 comprehensive is to be found. The manor-house of 

 Warley lies in one of the sunniest and driest parts of 

 England. The grounds were laid out and planted toward 

 the end of the seventeenth century by the celebrated 

 writer Evelyn. Here in surroundings naturally diversi- 

 fied a valley has been excavated by the chatelaine, and in 

 this artificial valley an excellent rock-garden built, tra- 

 versed by a mimic alpine stream. The whole is planted 

 with an exhaustive and world-wide collection of moun- 

 tain flora, well worthy of the cosmopolitan reputation 

 which it has so quickly won. 



On the borders of Yorkshire and Lancashire, Lord 

 Henry Bentinck, younger brother of the Duke of Port- 

 land, has constructed, in his magnificent estate at Kirkby 

 Lonsdale, a garden of great beauty and vast extent where 

 alpines and shrubs are grown among natural conditions. 

 To reach it, you are ferried across a stream of consider- 

 able size, from the edge of which the garden stretches 

 over four acres to the foot of a noble wood of immemorial 

 trees. Scarcely yet twelve years old, the place already 

 blends with the surrounding landscape. Enormous clumps 

 of Gunnera scabra, Saxifraga peltata, Lythrum and glorious 

 foliage plants of every kind enliven the banks of a torrent 

 which tumbles down the slope, spreading here and there 

 along its course into many little swamps. In the less 

 marshy places stand stately groups of ornamental Rhu- 

 barbs, architectural masses of Monkhoods and Knotweeds, 

 chief among them the fair Himalayan species Polygonum 

 molle, innumerably golden-orbed Doronicums, Senecios, 

 Ferns most manifold, which often reach to wonderful 

 proportions. The drier, sunnier spots are carpeted with 



